PROA's managing partners, Lucía Casanueva and Valvanuz Serna, exhibit, in an interview in Dircomfidential, his vision of the communication sector as well as the values that drive PROA's growth.
PROA has managed to carve out an important niche for itself in a communication sector that is currently highly fragmented, with a multitude of firms of all kinds operating in the market.
Since its foundation in 2009, Lucía Casanueva and Valvanuz Serna -who joined in 2015 as a partner- have opted to offer strategic consultancy in corporate communication with a differential positioning based on "senior talent" and the provision of an "excellent" service, according to both professionals in an interview with DIRCOMFIDENCIAL in their new offices located in Calle Montalbán 3, in the heart of Madrid's Retiro district.
With experience in consultancies such as LLYC, Edelman, Kreab and Porter Novelli, Lucía Casanueva and Valvanuz Serna have managed to become the trusted partner of senior executives who need to outsource their communication department. PROA currently has 12 employees and the same number of commercial collaborators specialised in different communication disciplines. In the last three years, they have maintained a sustained growth of 30% and have ambitious plans for the future.
What is your positioning in the communication sector?
Lucía Casanueva (LC): We are in the strategic consultancy range. That is where our clients, who are spearheads in their respective sectors, have taken us. The level of demand imposed on us by our portfolio of clients has forced us to be in a permanent state of healthy tension.
On the other hand, we come from the multinational model in communication consultancy. We continue to apply the methodology of multinationals, but our distinguishing feature, which is in our DNA, is to put senior consultants - I emphasise the term - in the implementation of projects. The average age of PROA consultants is between 40 and 55 years old. All of them have had responsibilities both in the media and as dircoms in large companies. We differentiate ourselves by the service vocation and writing skills of all the firm's consultants.
We believe in bringing excellence and talent to the client. What we see in many of the big consultancies is that they charge a series of variables in their fees that are not directly oriented to the provision of the communication consultancy service. We are rigorous: what is charged to the client is what is given to the client.
"We are rigorous: what is charged to the customer is what is given to the customer".
Do you define yourselves as a boutique firm?
LC: Not in terms of size. Yes in terms of quality of service. PROA is a company that competes with the big players in our market and we have a growth plan that is both ambitious and realistic at the same time.
Valvanuz Serna (VS): Although there is an ethos that is perhaps linked to this concept, we are not obsessed with volume growth, but prefer sustained growth and a long-term relationship with clients, with strategic and senior input.
You emphasise your commitment to senior talent: is this a distinctive sign in a very 'juniorised' sector?
VS: It differentiates us because it gives meaning to the vision of our business model. We are very close to the management committee, CEOs, chairmen and owners. The only way we can help them solve the challenges they face on a day-to-day basis is with senior talent with whom they can maintain a close and trusting relationship. Otherwise, we would never be able to talk about strategic input to clients. We would be something completely different, a commodity.
Talent, strategy, trust, client advice and a senior team in implementation must necessarily go hand in hand. PROA's commitment to senior talent is unquestionable and clear.
"We are not obsessed with volume growth, but prefer sustained growth and a long-term relationship with customers.
What kind of clients do you work with?
LC: We have a very varied portfolio of clients. But I would point out four blocks. On the one hand, sectoral employers, subsidiaries of multinationals, these types of companies usually have a marketing director and outsource the rest. Another important segment for PROA is the Spanish family business, medium and large.
Another niche, where we have worked hard since our origins and where we feel comfortable, is venture capital funds.
In all the sectors mentioned above, the trend is to outsource the communications function, with excellence, with reasoned and reasonable fees and with results. In this respect, we are very rigorous about measurement.
How do such clients approach PROA?
VS: The highest percentage are clients referred by someone who has worked with PROA in the past. Word of mouth in our field is fundamental. But as we have gained brand positioning in the market, we are invited to competitions where we are competing with large consultancies. And we also get new clients or projects via Google searches for specific terms in which PROA appears in prominent positions.
You have an Advisory Board with reputed professionals in different areas. What does it give you?
LC: They bring us their knowledge and experience and excellence in their professional field. The meetings with the Advisory Board are very enriching because each one of them knows a business area. We know about communication, but we are not experts in areas such as energy, professional services, food and beverage or public affairs.
Our Board is multidisciplinary and, in addition to their knowledge, they also provide us with the vision of the multinational and ambitious but achievable growth challenges. If we err on the wrong course, they help us to take the helm and steer the bow correctly.
The bottom line is that they are helping us to professionalise the Company.
What areas of communication do you specialise in?
VS: Much of our business is based on corporate communications, but we address any communication challenge that arises in the company.
For most of our clients, we act as an outsourced communications department and support the day-to-day running of the company. That day-to-day may be a crisis, a launch, an IPO, an ERTE, litigation...
In short, our specialisation is corporate communication, but with all the variants that arise in 360º.
Target 2022: grow by 30%
What are your business objectives?
LC: We have an ambitious business plan, which we have fulfilled in the first four months of the year. We treat ourselves as if we were a company with financial partners to whom we have to report quarterly results.
For this year, our target is to grow by another 30%, in line with the last two years.
On what pillars has such high growth been based?
LC: It's all about organic growth. We want to grow organically.
We want to apply our way of being, personality and idiosyncrasy - which is very marked - to the project.
We have grown with our customers, doing more and more projects with them. And mainly by word-of-mouth: a satisfied customer prescribes to his suppliers. Customer-to-customer recommendation is what works best.
And we have also made a considerable effort to publicise what PROA does in other regions of Spain, mainly in Barcelona, in the northwest, in the Levante region and soon in Andalusia. We are moving out of our usual environment, which is Madrid.
You were talking about fees before, are they fair in Spain for the provision of communication services?
LC: We agree with something that José Antonio Llorente commented -for whom we once worked and from whom we learned a lot-, who publicly complained about the poor remuneration of communication consultancy in our country. We fully agree. It should be added that what is not adequately paid is not valued.
We get a lot of business from Anglo-Saxon countries. In particular, from the UK, we get customers who pay a fee monthly that triples a fee Spanish standard.
We are in the medium-high fee bracket. PROA is not a communication consultancy low cost. But our fees are reasoned and reasonable because we put senior professionals in the execution of the projects.
I advocate a professionalisation of the sector, getting away from all that is low cost and to highlight the importance of applying strategy to communication.
What should the sector do to solve this problem? Is there a lack of unity between companies in the sector?
VS: There should be some consensus on minimum prices. It hurts the whole communication consultancy business sector. I also think it is very difficult to control. We are very clear about our model and where we are going. Obviously, there will be consultancies that pull the sector upwards and there will be others that pull it downwards.
"I advocate a professionalisation of the sector, getting away from all that is low cost and to highlight the importance of applying strategy to communication.
There is a tendency in the communications sector to acquire a lot of volume through mergers and acquisitions. You have a different positioning, what are the advantages compared to such large structures that are growing all the time?
LC: It has all the advantages. We set our own standards. As I said before, we behave as if we were a company with financial partners and we report to an Advisory Board every four months, with the numbers on the table. It is a self-imposed requirement to have a clear roadmap.
In PROA's business model we place more importance on profitability than size. We are always guided by a criterion of profitability without sacrificing excellence in implementation. In our DNA, everything that surrounds PROA - from a logo to a photograph to the wording of a text - has to emanate solidity.
We believe this is a competitive advantage that will help us grow in tough times. The autumn is complex, but operators who are guided by a criterion of excellence will survive and grow.
VS: If we compare ourselves to the big ones, we have a very clear commitment that the person assigned to the project will be the daily interlocutor.
Communication trends
Most companies are focused on communicating their corporate positioning. Is this an opportunity for communications firms?
VS: No doubt it is. It is a demand that was already there and that with COVID-19 has become more evident. I would say that it has become a requirement. The profit and loss account and the shareholder are fundamental for the company, but the stakeholders demand something more.
At PROA we have materialised this very well. Although we are mainly dedicated to communication, we have as our core business the claim that defines us: "Beyond communication, reflection for progress".. This is our aim: to make a real contribution to society, through the access we have through our work, and to allow a moment of reflection, of pause, every time we make an Observatory, to contribute something more.
Another trend in the world of communication is disinformation and the decline of media credibility. How does this context affect you?
LC: It affects us, as it does everyone. We attack this situation by going back to basics. We try to work well. We do a lot of filtering so that everything we transmit on behalf of our clients is truthful and contrasted information.
Fighting against fake news has a 'ploughing in the sea' part. It is impossible. Everyone has to do their bit to advocate for quality, thoughtful content that brings something to the audience.
The major media outlets, which are the guarantors of reliable information, will have to coexist with everything that moves on social networks, which is often noise and lies.
You mentioned earlier the importance of measurement, which has been one of the great deficits of the profession. Is it improving in this area?
VS: Without a doubt. Right from the start, the digital world has brought about a revolution in measurement, due to the number of tools that any platform makes available to the user.
For the most intangible part, reputation, what we do is agree with the client on a series of KPIs. Each one has its own objectives: some want to grow in a certain area, others want to be featured in a specific media...
For this reason, what we do at the beginning of the relationship with the client is an immersion phase, in which we dedicate ourselves to getting to know the context in which they operate and their needs. There we set the objectives, which go hand in hand with the metrics provided by the digital area. And we also monitor the strategic plan that is established at the beginning of the year, which we gradually review to make corrections.
You have mentioned that your interlocutor is usually the CEO or owner of the company, although I imagine that this is also true of the DIRCOM. How do you see this professional figure? Is he or she gaining weight in organisations?
LC: If we don't report to the company's top manager, it's usually the marketing director. As I mentioned before, for many clients we act as an outsourced communications department.
However, I believe that the figure of the dircom has grown in its capacity to influence decision-making and has greater recognition within companies. But there is still a long way to go. A dircom has real influence if he or she is on the management committee. The dircom has to be on the same level as the head of the legal department. If we look at IBEX and continuous market companies one by one, there is a lot to be done.
"A dircom has real influence if he or she is on the steering committee".
On a general level, how do you see the level of brand communication in Spain?
VS: We have been in communication for many years. There has been a great evolution in the sector. The origin of our business was as a press office and, over time, we have been able to define our work as consultancy.
In Spain the cases are very different. There are companies that have understood for many years the importance of communication and how essential it is for the business. And if they are multinationals, they are much more advanced.
However, there is a lot of challenge in the medium-sized business environment. There are great success stories in our country and internationally that are not known. Often, because they have done well, they do not understand what a communication strategy can bring them. Here we try to do a lot of pedagogy.
Future plans
In the medium and long term, where do you want the company's bow to point?
LC: In three or four years we want to double in size and gain notoriety and relevance. We are aware that we are still a very unknown consultancy. PROA has started to become better known in the last five years.
We want, therefore, to gain relevance and notoriety in the business ecosystem. And to gain territorial relevance in other autonomous communities.
We do not plan to open our own offices in Latin America during this period, but we do want to strengthen our ties and cooperation with other strategic consultancies in other markets. We have fruitful partnerships in France, the UK and Portugal, but we want to grow in other markets as well. We are open to opportunities that may arise.